The Underwriter’s Edge: Using Data & Technology to Discover What’s Possible in Commercial P&C Insurance

This post is part of a series sponsored by Insurance Quantified.

Underwriting commercial P&C insurance is complex – each industry looks different, small businesses are different than medium-sized ones, and each product can bring on new complications. Combine these challenges with an industry talent crisis, and it has never been more difficult to position your underwriting function for success.

At Insurance Quantified, we believe a systematic underwriting process delivering the right data, to the right people at the right time can amplify your employee talent and advance your business in ways never thought possible. We imagine faster coverage decisions, more agile product innovation and significant risk reduction for all participants in the underwriting value chain.

That vision might inspire skepticism if you’ve experienced bold technology promises before, only to end up with lost dollars, wasted time and increased frustration. We don’t approach these concerns lightly. Over the last six years, we’ve worked closely with our clients and industry partners to understand the most critical pain points and identify the remedies. Here’s what we’ve learned:

Start small

We’ve seen many technology projects start big – big ambitions, big budgets. Eventually, these tend to result in long, deflating timelines, user frustration and then often failure. The idea that new technology has to work from the get-go for every line of business, every product and all relevant functionality is just flat-out the wrong approach.

One-size-fits-all doesn’t apply

Each business is unique, so technology needs to have the flexibility to accommodate an array of different needs. For example, while we have the capabilities to take on any commercial P&C industry, line and product, we are initially focusing on commercial trucking, professional liability, construction and certain areas of property. In addition, when onboarding a new client, we always start with a single line of business, and sometimes even a partial self-contained area. Why? Because tackling one industry at a time allows for the focus required to get everyone in the room to understand their business and how our technology can impact it. From there, we can deliver our product with whatever configuration is needed in mere weeks, rather than months.

Deliver value early and without disruption

Not only does technology need to increase productivity in a game-changing way, but the minute you suggest changes to the workflow, users question the value of adoption. New solutions have a tendency to overwhelm users who are already up to their eyeballs with tasks. To win their trust, users need to see value quickly. Crucially, this value must be delivered without disrupting user workflows, which can be complicated in commercial P&C insurance, as most of the industry still relies on older technology or uses Excel, Outlook or the web to complete their underwriting process. If these challenges are navigated effectively, you win the right to move forward.

What’s our recipe for success? The underwriter’s edge.

We start with the underwriting operations teams, streamlining key manual tasks to add time back to their days. By automating the ingestion of submissions, enriching those submissions with third-party data and presenting it all back to the users via an easy-to-navigate user interface for triage, we empower operations teams to complete submissions for underwriters faster, with more accuracy and less effort.

This has led to tremendous decreases in time to quote and increases in quote-to-bind ratios. Users experience the value, while senior leadership sees proof of success. From there, we can go further, drilling deeper into individual business lines while expanding our work across the entire business.

I hope this gives you some optimism that using more data and technology in underwriting is not only possible, but offers significant opportunity for your organization. We all know it to be true in an abstract sense, but realizing that promise can feel incredibly daunting – and that’s where we come in. At Insurance Quantified, we strive to serve as a partner that is committed to your success, and we invest the time to know your business intimately and be with you at every step.

The launch of our new website and brand – encapsulated in our new “The Underwriter’s Edge” tagline – is the latest testament to this commitment. We are laser-focused on helping our clients use modern technology to advance their business in ways never thought possible, and we’re working tirelessly each day to help bring this vision to reality.

Stay tuned for more insights on how you can find your underwriter’s edge.

Topics Commercial Lines Business Insurance Tech Underwriting Data Driven Property Casualty